There are many ways an online marketer can be found in the search engines. The list goes on and on when it comes to online marketing strategies such as blogging, using videos and the like. What I want to do is share with you a few sites that are very popular and can propel your local marketing to the next stratosphere and your competitors will not be able to catch you or figure out how you are completely dominating the entire front page of the serps.

1. The first one that many local marketers are sleeping on is Hubpages. Yep, that’s right Hubpages. According to Quantcast, HubPages has become one of the 100 most visited US sites on the Internet. In December 2009, it received around 17.6 million visits and over 88 million page views. It also has an Alexa ranking of 273. HubPages will not allow overly-promotional Hubs (i.e Hubs which are written solely to promote a single product or service), and its “HubScore” system heavily penalises duplicate content (articles that are already published elsewhere on the internet). Some Hubbers find these measures restrictive, but it has prevented the spamming problems experienced at Squidoo, and helped to maintain the quality of the site.Simply put, if you are not using Hubpages you are missing a great place to post relevant content and gain more exposure and rankings
2. Wetpaint is the largest network of free websites and that’s why you should include it in your local search marketing campaign. Wetpaint sites work like a wiki which significantly increases the number of people who can easily participate in helping grow and edit content of the site. This will allow for you or your customer to have another place to interact and become more visible in your local community.Wetpaint targets non-technical internet users who want to collaborate online, and therefore attempts to include easy to use features, such as a three step wiki creation wizard. Wetpaint is free of charge and supported by contextual advertising.
3. WordPress.com is a hosted blog service. You do not have to download software, pay for hosting or manage a web server. According to Quantcast 32M+ U.S. monthly people views this site monthly, making it the 25th most visited site in the world. I am sure that some of your locals are included in this list and even if they are not, you still would have a blog promoting you and your services locally. Thereby giving more credence to your company as being seen everywhere. The site appeals to a more educated following, but that does not mean that those that are less educated do not use or visit the site.
4. Zimbio.com is an interactive magazine with 10 million readers a month.Zimbio is a social networking site that allows you to not only find out about the latest topics that interest you, but promote and syndicate your blog. This is an invaluable service provided to you because you will get more volume from the search engines. Zimbio is one of the fastest growing community sites on the internet and you need to be there.
5. Squidoo is the last on the list, but by no means is it mean to be last on your list. Squidoo can be used for creating single webpages on your interests and recommendations.  You could even earn money for charity or yourself while promoting your local business. Lenses are much like a blog posts, except on a single subject and you do not need to be an expert. As of Dec 2009: About 800,000 people visit Squidoo (that means your lenses) every day. The more traffic one lens brings in, the greater the chances that visitor will see your lens as well. Not to mention that there is also an opportunity to place your links and become a dominating  force in your local marketing campaign.

I hope this helps you out a bit, believe me there is no shortage of places to post links and have relevant content. All you need to do is get yourself out there and use the resources to begin to market yourself effectively. By you using the sites listed above you will definitely be head and shoulders above your local competitors because most of them are still focusing on yellow pages or their local newspaper to get them leads and exposure. This is easy money for you, plus you may even make a few side bucks on the side while your competitors are still wondering what is happening to their sales.

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